Pynchon in Public Day

Tags ‘Pynchon in Public Day’

Sascha PĂ¶hlmann and the Munich Pynchon gang have been up to some strange contre-jour goings-on. Indeed, in one sense that Pynchon uses the term, although perhaps not in another (who knows? Better ask Lake), they seem to have doubled up.

Martin Eve

June 10th

Quite clearly, the only place that any Pynchon lover would buy coffee would be from these guys. As expected, of course, they were out in force on May 8th 2011 and you can check out all their action on their Flickr page.

Martin Eve

June 8th

To kick off the documentation of the inaugural Pynchon in Public Day, here is a post about the Brighton meet-up. If others have photos/details of events in which they participated please email me (sadly W.A.S.T.E. is not available). I met with “John Dee” (@Dystopia2009) and we talked Pynchon, politics and life. We also installed several post horn insignia around the place:

There was also an article about this event in the Guardian yesterday detailing how the event came to be. Here’s a small excerpt:

“The rarity of seeing someone reading Pynchon in public prompted me to break tube etiquette and say hello, albeit briefly given that I had to get off,” says Eve. “Anyway, I tweeted about the occurrence and ‘John Dee’ (@Dystopia2009) got in touch and proposed that, on Pynchon’s birthday, we could hold a Pynchon in Public day. The appeal lies in the author’s stance on privacy; a man who has evaded the media gaze for 50 years while writing some of the most highly regarded, and most controversial, American prose couldn’t be asked to come out in public. On the other hand, his devoted following could wheel out the symbols of paranoia that pervade his books and celebrate what’s in the texts. Pynchon is worth it for the revolution he effected for American fiction . . . primarily a revolution that has reintroduced a critical Left stance into the landscape, even if this wasn’t entirely recognised at the time.”

Finally, after a long exhausting day I returned home (not so public, I know) to drink tea from this very special mug: